Deciding it might be fun to spin old straw into new gold, we listed four of our stories on Bablecube. Bablecube states that their site provides the “easiest way for book publishers and authors to team up with translators and sell their books in multiple languages globally”, and it really was fairly easy for us. It works like this: A publisher or author lists a book on the Babelcube site. A translator searches the site until he or she finds a book that might sell to a non-English-speaking audience, and they then contact the author. If everybody likes everybody, an agreement is made between the parties. The electronic contract is lengthy but understandable, without a heavy dose of lawyerese, and it gives Babelcube an exclusive license to sell the translated version for five years. Until the book (or, in this case, story collection) makes some serious money, the translator gets the biggest piece of the net. The author may get a smaller cut but there's a sweetener for the people who created the story. This is a "work-for-hire" deal for the translator and the author continues to hold all copyrights. After five years, should the writer so choose, they can kill the deal and keep the translated version as their own.Overall, there didn't seem to be too many negatives that we could see. The whole thing sounded like fun, in a vague kind of non-fun way, and not a lot of work (for us), so we put up a few stories and waited to see if anyone was interested in playing in our sandbox. In less than a week, a Spanish translator contacted us about the shortest of the offerings -- After Things Went Bad. When we reviewed her bona fides, she was more than qualified to do this kind of thing, so we signed our contract. A day or so later, a Portuguese translator contacted about 'Things', too...and she also carried all the ups-and-extras you'd want in someone translating your work, so we signed that contract, too.As part of the deal, the translator is to provide the first ten pages of a story for the author's approval. Our Portuguese-translating partner was the first to send in her ten pages, and we got them, and we looked at them, and....It turns out, neither of us can read Portuguese. This wasn't a surprise, just in case you think the Arizona sun has been beating upon our respective noggins a little too fiercely, but it did mean we had to find someone who could understand the language. Which we did, finally, and they liked what they were seeing with small caveats -- did you know there's a difference between Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal Portuguese? Oh, you fibber, you did not -- and our translator was lovely and receptive to changes and everything came together. You can find this edition right here or in some 300-other locations. Sooner or later, we hope to make a few euros. And, then, the other day, we received the first ten pages of the Spanish version of 'Things'. It turns out, neither of us can read Spanish, either....Reading: Dancing Days by V.J. Chambers. It's not only interesting, it's free, and who can resist a synopsis that starts with, "If Hogwarts were more like Woodstock, and Voldemort was your childhood sweetheart turned abusive boyfriend..."Watching: We're so torn. The new Robocop, with Joel Kinnaman? Non-Stop, with Liam Neeson? Jack Ryan, with Chris Pine? It needs to be fast, exciting, and not beyond-stupid. Oh, maybe we'll just go with The Lego Movie....

Come on in! This

is the electronic home of Renée Harrell. Did you bring any wine?

Renée & Harrell

It's about time you got here.

We aren't kidding about the wine.This is where we talk about writing... ...our writing, mostly. We also discuss kiva.org, Hunting Monsters Press, the magic bakery, self-publishing, pseudonyms, life itself -- a bunch of things.